Yeah, this convinced me to stay a bachelor for life.
We TV hosted the Bridezilla contest to celebrate the fifth season of their Bridezillas television show, on June 3rd, in Time Square, New York. The brides participating in the contest had to race to the top of a multi-layered artificial cake where they had to participate in a cake-eating contest, for the grand prize of $25,000. The winner managed to eat 9 mini-cakes in just 2 minutes and said she’ll use the money for an extravagant wedding.
A building partially covered with real gold.
Built in 1397 as a retirement villa for Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, Kinkaku is a three-story building, with the last two, fully covered with pure gold leaf. The temple was set on fire by a monk in 1950, but it was restored and the new gold coating dating from 1987 is much thicker than the original one.
Kinkaku is one of Japan’s most beautiful attractions and it serves as a “shariden”, a place where relics of Buddha are stored.
One of the most beautiful frozen wonders on Earth, ice flowers are still a mystery to many people.
Ice flowers are formed on new layers of sea ice, from saturated water vapors that come up from under the ice through cracks. In contact with the cold air, the vapors start to freeze and the salt on the surface of the ice begins to crystallize and serves as a nucleus for the frozen vaporized water. Thus, molecule by molecule the ice flowers begin to take shape. They have recently been recognized as the dominant source of sea salt aerosol in Antarctica and scientist suspect they may be the main cause of tropospheric ozone depletion during the polar sunrise.
Yeah, I thought so too, but apparently it’s possible.
It’s actually been done too, in October 2007, a German cathedral, first mentioned in documents in 1297, was moved using a huge trailer platform from its original emplacement by a mining company. The village it was built in 710 years ago was evacuated and was going to become a coal mining site, so, forced by German legislation, the contracting company had to spend 3 million euro to move the church to another location.
At 19,6 meters high, 14,5 meters long and weighing 750 tons, you can imagine it wasn’t an easy task for those involved. Thankfully, the church reached its new home in Martin Luther Square, in Borna, after a few days of traveling.
What’s amazing is that people pay to be close to these man-eaters.
This is Cango Wildlife Ranch in South Africa, a unique endangered animal shelter where people can dive in a pool with crocodiles and get close enough to see their teeth. Anyone over 12 years-old is allowed to dive into the cleverly designed cage that keeps the adrenalin junkies safe from the crushing bite of the crocodiles, but all children under 16 must be accompanied by an adult.
There is a small opening at about half the height of the cage where crocs can actually get their noses into the cage, close enough for you to touch them, but thankfully it’s to tight for them to open their mouth. Some activists may complain about how the crocodiles are treated but the organizers at The Cango Wildlife Ranch say that no harm comes to the animals and that they just want to show people how magnificent the crocodile is in its natural environment, so they can understand why it is such a perfect predator.
Calm down everyone, it’s not a disease or anything like that.
Infection is the name of the new watch released by funky manufacturer TokyoFlash. Combining LED technology with an original, ergonomic design, Infection introduces an innovative and odd way to read time. It has twelve red LEDs that represent hours, eleven yellow LED’s representing the flow of time in groups of five minutes and four green LEDs showing the single minutes.
Although it does look pretty cool and it probably attracts a lot of curious eyes I think this 99% fashion accessory and 1% watch. I mean just think how hard it must be just to get used to it, but who needs the time when u can be cool…
This is the world’s largest hourglass.
Unveiled on May 1st 2004 to commemorate Hungary’s entrance in the European Union, The Time Wheel is made out of red granite, steel and bullet-proof glass and it combines one of humanity’s most primitive time measuring devices with a very precise computer. It lies in Budapest near the entrance to City Park. The sand in the hourglass flows from one side of the device to the other for an entire year and the last grains are programmed to flow exactly at midnight on New Year’s Eve. The flow is then turned manually so that it can start measuring time for another year. It takes 45 minutes for 4 people to turn it 180 degrees using metal cables.
The Time Wheel hourglass was designed by Istvan Janaki.
It’s not exactly The Splitting of The Red Sea but it’s pretty close.
Jindo Island, in South Korea, is host to one of the world’s most amazing natural phenomenons, called the Moses Miracle. Two times a year, during a low tide, a land path 2.8 kilometers long and 40 meters wide is revealed, uniting the islands of Jindo and Modo for a period of one hour. A festival is dedicated to this natural wonder and people from all around the world attend every year. However the Moses Miracle was largely unknown until 1975, when a French ambassador visited South Korea and wrote about in a French Newspaper.
The legend behind this Korean phenomenon goes like this: a Jindo village was attacked by tigers and all the villagers ran to Modo island for shelter. All, except for a helpless old woman who was left behind, out of despair she prayed to the Sea God, who split the sea and helped her escape the bloodthirsty animals.
The Moses Miracle just took place on May 18th.
Not many places offer this kind of privacy.
Built between 1861 and 1880 to protect Portsmouth from French naval attacks, No Man’s Land Fort was last used for military purposes during WWII and in later years it has been transformed into a luxury hotel with 21 rooms, indoor heated swimming pool and 2 helipads. But due to multiple problems, including finding a dangerous virus in the water supply in 2004, this incredible location ended up for sale in 2005 and 2007. But the 4 million British pounds price tag kept buyers away and in the meantime the owning company went bankrupt. Now the building is on auction again, while the owner lies in prison.
If you have the money, No Man’s Land Fort is worth a look, it’s 81 meters in diameter and 18 meters in height, it’s built out of granite blocks and reinforced with a thick iron plating and if its luxury doesn’t convince you, at least you know that if you ever have to fend off a naval attack, you have a chance.
It never struck me like a sport for senior citizens but…
Apparently old people love it! at least the ones at Corpus Christi Catholic Home for retired priest and nuns in Melbourne, Australia, do. The over 80 years old athletes have been learning the art of fencing for nine months now, and apparently they are getting quite good at it. One of the care-takers from the home said the old people were a bit reluctant at first but after having a talk with the convincing instructor, they said yes.
Even 93 years old Sister Dolores says she loves the sport, even though she admits it’s a chalenge at her age and she’s always afraid she might fall over.
Coolest stunt I’ve seen in a while.
This driver must be crazy to attempt such a dangerous car stunt. Sure simply walking on a string while holding a pole as balance is no easy feat either, but driving a car is on a whole other level, ant the height would certainly kill the guy. I haven’t been able to find out where this took place but it must be some kind of new record.
That’s right folks there’s such a thing as a World Pizza Championship.
It’s hosted in Salsomaggiore Terme, Italy and it gathers tens of professional pizza makers from allover the world. The most impressive challenge of the entire contest is the pizza tossing, an acrobatic event involving the pizza dough. As you can see from the pics, these guys are true masters tossing giant pies into the air or spinning them on their fingers like basketballs and there are even synchronized-dancers performing with pizza dough. Must really cool to watch these guys go all out to take the title of best pizza maker in the world. So, if you’re ever in Italy…
You know what happens if you drop a sweet mint into a bottle of coke right? What if 1500 people did it at the same time?
That’s what 1500 students from a University in Belgium tried to find out and also set a new world record for the world’s biggest Mentos fountain. It wasn’t the most important experiment in the lives of the young chemistry students, but I can bet it was the funniest one.
You can see the result of the experiment in the photos below, too bad I couldn’t find any more.
Apparently there are those who think the Fuhrer was a hero.
Some of these people live in the Ukraine, where an Adolf Hitler action-figure has gone on sale. The $200 doll is compared to Barbie by sales-women in Kiev and, just like the famous blond, it comes complete with accessories and several changes of clothes. Although any form of Nazism or fascism is prohibited in the Ukraine, the dolls are already on sale and will be mas-produced starting this summer. This is a result of growing extreme right political sentiment and increasing xenophobia and racism.
It looks like some Ukrainians, especially the young ones, have forgotten that Hitler killed 3 million of them during WWII, including 1.5 million Jews. He wanted to turn the country into slave populated buffer zone with Russia, now they think he was a hero…that’s sad.
The doll comes with a spare head that gives Hitler a kinder face…because he was such a kind person?!?
I never knew traditional Nigerian Boxing is one of the deadliest sports in the world.
Practiced by traveling young African men, Dambe is one of the few ways they can become famous in a country like Nigeria. The winner of a Dambe tournament gets around $100, a TV-set and the honor of being a champion, not much for what he has to go through.
All a fighter has to do to win a fight is knock down his opponent only once in three rounds, but if the two are evenly matched, a fight can go on for hours. As you can see in the photos, fighters wear a flax cord rapped around one of their fists. They wet the string and sprinkle sand on it to make his punches more painful. The other hand is used to taunt and trick the opponent into letting his guard down. Many have been seriously injured and even died practising this blood sport, but as many fighters complain, there isn’t much an unemployed Nigerian can do to find fame.
